


Your Enemy is My Enemy

by eternaleponine



Series: The 100 Clexa Reunion [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5006230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke wakes up in Lexa's bed, and they have to decide whether they're ready to face what comes after 'I love you'.</p>
<p>Follows <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4006579">Famous Last Words</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Enemy is My Enemy

It was the silence that woke her. 

Well, more likely it was some sort of internal clock that told her that the sun was rising, but that only started to draw her mind to consciousness. It was the silence that snapped her into focus an instant later. 

No stream, no birds, no wind through the trees...

No rocks digging into her hips or roots gnawing into her back.

She was warm, and comfortable... and not alone. 

She wasn't sure what it said about her state of mind that it had taken more than a few seconds to really process the fact that her arms were wrapped around something very much alive, that another person's body had shaped itself into the curve of her own, and that it would take only the slightest movement to brush her lips against the back of one lightly tanned shoulder. 

Hair tickled her face, and she tried to move it without actually moving, not wanting to disturb the one she held, not wanting to wake her just yet, not wanting to see what tomorrow brought now that tomorrow had arrived. 

_Ai hod yu in, Clarke kom Skaikru._

_I love you too._

A confession, a vow... As close to a promise as either of them was ever likely to make, and she'd meant it at the time but would the words hold up in the cold light of day? They'd been wrapped in a cocoon of warmth, intoxicated by each other and all of the chemicals swirling through their brains in the wake of orgasm, and could they really be held to anything they said in such a state?

Clarke felt Lexa stir, and she loosened her grip, and felt Lexa slip from her grasp as she rolled onto her stomach, revealing the tattoos that Clarke had noticed the night before, but hadn't paid a lot of attention to, choosing instead to focus on finding every single scar she bore and trying to kiss it away. But she had time to look at them now, and she traced them lightly with a fingertip, wondering if they meant anything or if they were just designs that Lexa liked, or that whoever had actually pressed the ink into her skin (and it only now occurred to her to wonder how) had decided suited her. Curved shapes rose on either side of her spine like flames, or maybe wings but they were facing the wrong way for that, weren't they?

"Do you like them?" Lexa asked, her voice low and soft, muffled by the bedclothes. 

"I don't know if like is the right word," Clarke said.

"What is the right word?" Lexa asked, rolling again, this time to face Clarke, one arm tucked under her head to take the place of the pillow that had been knocked off the bed the night before. 

"I don't know," Clarke said. "They're interesting."

"Interesting."

"Would you prefer fascinating? Intriguing?"

The corners of Lexa's mouth curved up. "Yes. I like those words better."

"Fine. They're fascinating."

"And intriguing."

"And intriguing." Clarke felt herself smiling, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd done that, she really couldn't. Even last night, even in the midst of what had passed between them, she hadn't smiled, or at least not that she remembered. It had all seemed too serious, but now... Well, it was hard to take the Commander too seriously when her hair was tousled and her eyes bright, boring into Clarke but not because she was searching for lies but because she'd found the truth and it pleased her.

"If I asked to kiss you, would you let me?" Lexa asked, her smile fading slightly from her lips, but not from her eyes. 

"I would let you even if you didn't ask," Clarke said, because it was the truth and because, for all that Lexa had turned her back on Clarke when she'd needed her most, they had never actually _lied_ to each other. 

"But I am asking."

"Yes, Lexa. I would let you."

"May I kiss you?"

"Yes." The word had scarcely cleared her lips before Lexa's mouth pressed to hers, and there was no hurry to it, no argument, no demand, nothing but sweetness and softness and everything that Lexa was that she never let anyone see. She laid herself bare and made herself vulnerable for Clarke, and Clarke knew it, and her arms tightened back around her, drawing her in because she needed her to know that it was okay, that she was safe, that she could let herself be all of those things and no harm would come to her because of it. Not here, not now. Not at Clarke's hand, and not on her watch.

Kisses turned to caresses, and words turned to not words, turned to the inability to form words or even thoughts, and then they lay spent in a tangle again, and Clarke tried to think about whether anything , anyone, had ever felt like this before but thinking was still very, very hard.

Then someone rapped on the door, and Lexa's arms tightened around her in the same moment that she instinctively tried to pull away, and so they stared at each other at an impasse before Lexa loosened her grip and pushed herself up on one elbow, looking reading to call out to whoever was at the door to send them away, or maybe to tell them to come in, but after a second's hesitation she pushed aside the blankets and reached for the robe that lay discarded on the floor, wrapping it around herself and going to the door.

Clarke didn't understand what was said, but there didn't seem to be a great deal of urgency in Lexa's voice, nor did she move quickly to dress after she had closed it again, so she assumed that it couldn't be any sort of dire news. Still, she pushed herself to sitting, drawing up the blankets over her chest and watching Lexa as she padded across the room. "What happens now?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Lexa asked.

"I mean we can't stay in this room forever," Clarke said. "Obviously." She gestured toward the door. "So what happens now?"

"I told her I would send for her when I was ready," Lexa said. "It is nothing."

Clarke snorted. "It's not nothing, Lexa," she said. "We spent the night together. When we leave this room... if anyone sees..." 

Lexa shrugged. "So what if they see?"

"So they might think they know what's going on between us," Clarke said. "People talk."

Lexa's eyes fixed on her, pinning her in place. "Not my people. Not about me."

"You're sure of that?" Clarke asked. "You would stake your life on it? Mine?"

At that Lexa froze, and for a moment neither of them breathed. Then she looked at Clarke. "What do you think we should do, then?" she asked. 

"I don't know," Clarke admitted. "I didn't think about that when I came in here. I didn't think about leaving." _Because I don't want to leave,_ she realized. But it didn't matter what she wanted. Lexa had to deal with her people, and they weren't going to wait forever. They probably wouldn't even wait an hour, at this point. 

"Is it your wish that what passes between us remains a secret?" Lexa asked. "Or... is what passed... past?" 

Clarke heard the words behind her words, heard what she wanted to ask but couldn't, or wouldn't. _Is this over? Is this all we get? Are you finished with me now, now that you've had your way? Did the words that we said, were they only the heat of the moment talking? Did they mean something, or nothing at all?_

"No," Clarke said, then, "I don't know," then, "No," again, and finally, "Come here."

Lexa approached the bed cautiously, and it made Clarke's heart ache, that she had that kind of power to hurt her, that a word – the wrong word – could cut her down, could destroy any hope that she had, in a world that held little to none. 

"Come here," Clarke repeated, patting the place beside her that Lexa had so recently occupied. 

"No," Lexa said. "If I climb back into bed with you..." 

"What?" Clarke asked, when she didn't finish the sentence. "If you climb back into bed with me, what?"

"Then I won't want to leave it, and my people are waiting for me. We sent them away last night, and now they've seen me this morning, but if I don't appear as more than a face at the door, there will be questions, and it sounds like you are not ready for those questions to be answered."

"Are you?" Clarke asked. 

Lexa sighed. "I don't know. I am not ashamed of this. I would be proud to have you at my side, and for everyone to know that... that you are mine, and that I am yours. But I also know that that would put you in danger, and... I can't risk that. I am afraid to risk that." 

"The Commander, afraid?" Clarke meant for it to be teasing, but Lexa looked like she'd been slapped, and then her face closed off as she retreated behind the mask that Clarke had come to think of as _Heda_ , and the face that she wore when it was just the two of them, alone, the face that could show happiness and wonder and awe and fear and god help them both, love... that was Lexa. That was Lexa, and that was hers, and maybe hers alone, to see.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Lexa, I'm sorry."

Lexa shook her head. "You do not need to be sorry."

"I do," Clarke said. "Sometimes I say things, and I don't think about how they will be heard, and... I'm not trying to hurt you, Lexa. I'm not trying to corner you, to force you to do or say something that you don't want to. I just..." _I just want to understand. I just want to believe that everything you're saying, everything you seem to be saying, is actually true. I want to trust it, trust_ you, but I know that I can't, or that I shouldn't. You betrayed me, betrayed my people... But saved your own, and can I truly say that I would have done any differently if given the choice?

"Do you ever wish you were not the Commander?" Clarke asked. 

Lexa had turned her back, started to walk away, presumably to gather her clothes and dress, and turned back to Clarke. "There is no point in wishing that," she said. "I am the Commander. I was born to be."

Clarke frowned. "So from the time you were born, that was always what was going to be for you? You always knew, and you were raised for it?"

Lexa paused, then shook her head slowly. "That is not exactly how it works."

"Then how does it work?" Clarke asked. 

"When the Commander dies, their spirit chooses another to take up the role," Lexa said. "But it is possible that more than one person might be called, and they must prove themselves."

"How?"

Lexa shook her head again. "If you are so eager to know, there is an easy way to find out."

Clarke's forehead furrowed. She sensed there was a lot more behind those words than she was immediately grasping, that this was... not exactly a trap, but maybe a test. "How?"

Lexa just looked at her, and then at the weapons that lay not far away, in easy reach of either of them because no matter how safe Polis should be for Lexa, and by extension for Clarke, there were no guarantees and outside threats still existed and she would need to be ready at a moment's notice to face them. 

It clicked, then, what she was saying, and Clarke felt slightly queasy. "The only way for me to find out how the next Commander is chosen, how they prove themself, is for the current Commander to die."

"Yes."

"You are the Commander."

"Yes."

"You think I would... that I _could_...?" Clarke shivered. 

"I am unarmed. I am better trained than you are, and you've lost the element of surprise, but I have seen your strength. Perhaps you could best me."

"Are you _insane_?" Clarke asked. "You're suggesting that I... I..." She pushed aside the covers and stood up, and watched as Lexa shifted, just slightly, like she was preparing herself to be attacked, and caught somewhere between wanting to sob and scream, Clarke _did_ attack, but not with weapons. She just charged at her, shoving at her with both hands, and Lexa took it, absorbing the shock of it, taking half a step back and bracing herself for Clarke's next move.

"How can you even say that?" Clarke demanded, not shoving her again but making sure that Lexa did not have the space she might need to move against her... although really, would she need space? Still, Clarke had attacked her before and she'd never retaliated, and she was banking on the fact that she wouldn't now. "How _dare_ you even say that? After last night? After everything? You think... you think I can... you..."

_You think I want to kill you?_

_You think I can hurt you, after saying that I love you?_

_You... You. You, damn you. You. And me. And us, damn it._

Those were the things that she started to say and couldn't, as the fragile peace they'd wrapped around them like a cocoon cracked open and crumbled, and she was not a butterfly but just a twisted, ugly, malformed thing. Because she could, couldn't she? She'd proven that she could hurt someone, kill someone, even if she loved them. _Because_ she loved them. Lexa would not forget Finn, any more than Clarke would, and everything that she'd shoved down, everything she hadn't let herself, hadn't had time to let herself feel, came crashing in. Her knees buckled and she stumbled, and Lexa's arms caught her and held her up, held her tight so that even as she fell to pieces she did not lose any of the parts of herself.

"I'm sorry, Clarke," she whispered, her breath warm against her ear. "I'm sorry."

Sorry for what? Clarke didn't know, and she wasn't sure that it mattered. She wondered when the last time that those words had passed Lexa's lips were, if she ever apologized for anything that she did, or said. Perhaps she would say that she was sorry for someone's loss, but loss was so much a part of the Grounders' lives, would she even bother? It wasn't anything to be sorry for; it just _was_.

She felt herself being shifted, moved back toward the bed, and for a second Clarke wondered if Lexa would actually pick her up and lift her bodily back into it, but no, once they got there she waited for Clarke to climb up herself, and then followed, twining her arms around Clarke tightly, holding her until the tears that she hadn't been aware had started to fall subsided, and her breath steadied and her body stopped shaking, at least mostly. 

She wiped Clarke's cheek with the ball of her thumb, tracing away the tracks that the tears had left. She looked for a moment like she was going to say something, but no words came, and finally it was Clarke who spoke, because the silence was too heavy, the look in Lexa's eyes too... she didn't even know what... for her to just lay there and look back. "I thought you said that if you climbed back in bed with me, you wouldn't want to leave it."

"I don't," Lexa said. "But I thought that as long as we were here, as long as it was just the two of us, we would be safe. _You_ would be safe. But you're not safe. Your enemies still find you."

"My enemies?" 

"In your own head."

"Oh." Clarke sighed. "They could find me anywhere."

"But I drew them out."

"Maybe," Clarke said. "Maybe they needed to be drawn." She saw the tension in Lexa's face as she tried to keep it blank, suppressing a frown. "You cannot fight an enemy that you cannot see," she said. "Not easily."

"That is true," Lexa acknowledged. "Your enemies... they are my enemies. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes," Clarke said. In spite of everything, she believed Lexa when she said that. Whatever had happened at Mount Weather was done and over with, and although there was nothing that could erase that memory, that feeling of absolute and utter betrayal, she believed Lexa now when she promised, or as good as promised, that it wouldn't happen again. Maybe that made her a fool, maybe she trusted too easily and maybe her time here on Earth should have taught her that that was likely to get her killed, but hadn't that been true on the Ark as well? She'd faced betrayal there, too, by her own mother, who got her father killed to keep him quiet, who let her be locked up with no interaction with anyone for a year to keep her quiet... And she'd forgiven her, hadn't she? 

Had she?

She hadn't frozen her out, anyway, and she'd still gone to her for comfort when she needed it, even though she hadn't always found it. Lexa, though... Lexa had never judged her choices. Lexa had tried to teach her, with words and by example, that a leader had to make difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible choices, and no matter how much they didn't want to, the choices still had to be made, or they would be made for them, and the outcome of that would generally be worse than if they'd made the choice in the first place.

And Lexa offered comfort now, offered... what? A second chance? Was it a second chance? Or was it a third, or a fourth? More? How many chances did a person get? How many times did they get to start over? She offered comfort, and safety, and love? Could she believe that? 

Could she look Lexa in the eyes – Lexa, not _Heda_ \- and believe anything else?

"You hardly know me," Clarke said.

"I know some things about you better than you know them yourself," Lexa replied. "As you know some parts of me better than I do." She smiled, or at least her expression softened. "Those parts I don't know, I will learn, if you will let me."

"And you'll let me see the parts of you that you hide from the world?" Clarke asked. "You will let me know your secrets?"

She felt Lexa shudder, and her eyes closed, shutting Clarke out for a second before they opened again, more green than blue today, and cloudy with emotion. "Knowing my secrets puts you in danger," she whispered. "You know that. They could..."

"They could," Clarke said. "But you have your coalition, your alliance of the clans, and the Mountain has fallen, so who is left to use me against you?"

"I don't know," Lexa said. "Not everyone supports the peace. Not everyone thinks that the choices I make are for the best. And now, without the Mountain to join together to fight... I don't know. The peace may not last, and then you are in danger."

"Do I get a say?" Clarke asked.

Lexa frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Clarke replied. "Do I get a say in this, or are you going to make the decision for me?"

"What decision?" Lexa's fingers, which had been absently combing through Clarke's hair in a gesture of comfort that Clarke wasn't sure she was entirely conscious of, tightened, tugging at its roots. 

"Whether I get to stay here. Whether we... do this, I guess," Clarke said. She still wasn't even sure she fully understood what _this_ was, but at this point it didn't matter. She just wanted to know whether someone else was going to make this decision for her, like so many decisions had been made in the past. And then of course there was all of the decisions she'd had to make that had been forced upon her, that she'd never wanted to be responsible for, but this one... this one should be hers, shouldn't it? Or theirs... there were two of them here, two of them in this, and they should both get a say. 

"I have already told you that you can stay here," Lexa said. "You can stay for as long as you need to stay." 

"Or want to stay?"

"Or want," Lexa said. 

"But you're not sure whether you want to risk anyone knowing," Clarke said. "So I can stay, but not where anyone can see me? Not where anyone might find out that I am your weakness?"

"I didn't say that," Lexa said, and her fingers tightened again, hard enough that Clarke winced, and it was only then that Lexa seemed to become aware of what she was doing. She loosened her fingers, smoothed back Clarke's hair tenderly. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I don't want to hurt you."

"And I don't want to hurt you either, Lexa," Clarke said. "But it seems like no matter what I do, you think that's how it's going to end up. And maybe you're right. Maybe if we... do this, go public, let people know that this is more than just an alliance of our two people, that it's... an alliance of two hearts... maybe I will be a target, and maybe they'll come after me to get to you."

Lexa shook her head, pressing her lips tight together to hold back whatever words she wanted to say that she wouldn't let herself, and she looked away, blinking hard, and it wasn't hard to guess what she was thinking of.

"But the thing is, Lexa, if you decide you can't do this, then you lose me anyway," Clarke said. "I stay for as long as I need to stay, or want to stay, and then I go, and then... what? The world out there is brutal, Lexa. You know that better than pretty much anyone. You grew up in it, and you've spent so much time and energy on trying to make it better, trying to make it maybe just a little bit safer. But you're not willing to trust that enough to let yourself do what you want, have what you want, feel what you want. And I get it, Lexa, I do. You put your people first. It's what you were born for. It's what you've been told it is your duty to do, but... but does that mean you have to give everything up? Does that mean that you're not allowed to have anything? Does that mean that you are _Heda_ all the time, and Lexa none of it?"

"Stop," Lexa said, and the word was barely more than a whisper, and now it was her face streaked with tears. "Stop, Clarke, please."

So Clarke stopped, because she'd meant it when she said that she didn't want to hurt Lexa. But now she had... and maybe she was a liar, too, and a hypocrite, because maybe she _had_ wanted to hurt her just a little, but only because it was the only way to get past those walls, get under that skin that could be soft (oh, how soft it could be...) but right now was armor, and she'd had to get inside. She'd had to touch the place that she was knew was there, find the girl that was still living behind the mask, inside the shell, the girl with the heart that was so big that it could break and break and break and still keep beating, keep loving, no matter how much she didn't want to admit it.

"Lexa," she whispered, leaning close, forehead to forehead. "Anything could happen. Anything could happen to either one of us, and... and I'm not no one, Lexa, and you know that and I think that's why I'm here, why you're here with me, why we can't stay away from each other, why..." She swallowed, closed her eyes because Lexa's were already closed and maybe it was easier to bear the truth when their world was only the touch of each other's hands, the warmth of each other's breath, and the sound of each other's voice... "I'm not no one, and isn't it possible, don't you think it's possible, that someone could try to use you against me, too?"

Clarke felt Lexa tense, felt her ready to argue, but no words came, and so she said the words that she knew she couldn't unsay, the words that would change everything, one way or another, for both of them, forever. "I can't be your secret," Clarke whispered. "But I can... I think I can... I want to try to be... yours."


End file.
